One World Insight Blog | Douglas "Las" Wengell

An American Generation Deferred

There was a time, not long ago, when Americans were confident that the next generation would be wealthier, more skilled, better able, prettier, in a better position, happier than the prior one. That’s no longer true by almost every measure. My generation – Gen X – and those after will be the first in American history to witness a declining quality of living as measured by income, wealth and global competitiveness. And this before our engineers-turned-financial wizards single-handedly orchestrated the Great Recession and before Baby Boomers, who road the wing of postwar prosperity, begin their epic retirement, since they can’t afford to.

 

When I look at my life and those aspiring Americans around me – peers, friends, associates, fancy MBAs, interns, fellow travelers – there is a pattern suggesting a new reality. Few have worked at one job longer than a few years. Few have the time or resources to dig into other non-work aspects of their life – family, hobbies, travel. A huge number are freelancers of one sort or another, stitching together full-time work and taking it as it comes. Savings and retirement are worthy – but who can afford it? Legions of educated women have delayed family, whether because of a missing man or out of necessity (and what if things don’t work out?)  Many friends don’t think twice about receiving financial help from their family and more college graduates move home after graduation.

 

The future is too uncertain. It’s a generation deferred.

Authoritarian vs. Democratic Capitalism – Say what?

The most striking thing about China to me, at a macro level, is how affective the central government has been in maintaining its power and embracing capitalism. Unlike in the West, the government is in fact highly competent.

The prevailing belief about democracy is that it’s inevitable. Autocracy would eventual give way to power-to-the-people, if only the guard’s grip on power waned. Russia was our Cold War enemy. And the line sold to American’s proved true. Russia imploded.  But China is different from Russia. It’s economy is capitalistic. It’s politics in the hands of the smartest people Beijing can recruit.

From building massive infrastructure projects ahead of schedule, to reconfiguring the nearby park overnight, I am awed at China’s ability to execute, knowing that it’s based on the very top-down approach vilified in the West.

“Bet Against the American Dream” – aka, The Middle Class Short

This American Life, a U.S. public radio weekly, concluded a recent radio show with a Broadway parody distilling today’s robber barren era to its essence. Have a listen and  laugh (or cry):

Bet Against the American Dream from Alexander Hotz on Vimeo.

The top of the economic food chain has in effect shorted the middle class, and won. The losers in those bets weren’t Goldman Sachs investors -- they were millions of hard working Americans who bought into the American Dream, only to find it had been replaced by what looks more like House-takes-all ponzy scheme.

With the urgency of the financial crisis passing, the grim results surface: the largest transfer of wealth ever witnessed. Those at the top are intact and richer, those in the middle a few notches lower.  The American middle has been shrinking for at least 30 years and real wages stagnant when adjusted for inflation. Thirty years ago, top executives at S&P 500 companies made an average of 30 times what their workers did –  now they make 300 times. Between 2000 and 2008, the poverty rate in the suburbs of the largest metro areas in the U.S. grew by 25 percent – making these suburbs home to the country's largest and fastest-growing segment of the poor.

The American Dream used to be about hark work, perseverance, education, but the system appears rigged. Even the likes of establishment thinking is admitting this. In a new paper by The Hamilton Project, an economic think tank founded by Treasure-Citibank titan Robert Rubin, it argues that “the American tradition of expanding opportunity from one generation to the next is at risk because we are failing to make the necessary investments in human, physical, and environmental capital.”

The need to reorganize our financial system goes beyond the updating financial regulations. It goes to the heart of who we are as a nation, and whether we are going to stop sliding toward a Third World paradigm of two classes: those at the bottom and those at the top. “At least in an actual casino, the damage is contained to gamblers,” wrote financial journalist Roger Lowenstein.

 

Mandarin becoming the new French and German

A telling sign of American education is the instruction of foreign language. The world is fast becoming global and, while English will continue to be the dominant language into the twenty-first century, the precipitous rise of China has not much impacted pedagogy.   The big three foreign languages – Spanish, German and French – remain the primary options on the curriculum menu – provided they can be offered at all. Mandarin is on offer at a mere 4 percent of future-oriented American schools.

We would be wise to do away with German and French altogether and begin a massive campaign to teach our young Mandarin – giving them and America the advantage it will reap well into the future. Yet it’s the Chinese taking the initiative.

Excerpts from a New York Times piece, January 21, 2010, written by Sam Dillon.

Foreign Languages Fade in Class — Except Chinese

WASHINGTON — Thousands of public schools stopped teaching foreign languages in the last decade, according to a government-financed survey — dismal news for a nation that needs more linguists to conduct its global business and diplomacy.

But another contrary trend has educators and policy makers abuzz: a rush by schools in all parts of America to offer instruction in Chinese.

Some schools are paying for Chinese classes on their own, but hundreds are getting some help. The Chinese government is sending teachers from China to schools all over the world — and paying part of their salaries.

No one keeps an exact count, but rough calculations based on the government’s survey suggest that perhaps 1,600 American public and private schools are teaching Chinese, up from 300 or so a decade ago. And the numbers are growing exponentially.

Among America’s approximately 27,500 middle and high schools offering at least one foreign language, the proportion offering Chinese rose to 4 percent, from 1 percent, from 1997 to 2008.

“It’s really changing the language education landscape of this country,” said Nancy C. Rhodes, a director at the center and co-author of the survey.

“We’ve all been surprised that in such a short time Chinese would grow to surpass A.P. German,” Mr. Packer said.

A decade ago, most of the schools with Chinese programs were on the East and West Coasts. But in recent years, many schools have started Chinese programs in heartland states, including Ohio and Illinois in the Midwest, Texas and Georgia in the South, and Colorado and Utah in the Rocky Mountain West.

America has had the study of a foreign language grow before, only to see the bubble burst. Many schools began teaching Japanese in the 1980s, after Japan emerged as an economic rival. But thousands have dropped the language, the survey found.

Japanese is not the only language that has declined. Thousands of schools that offered French, German or Russian have stopped teaching those languages, too, the survey found.

Experts said several factors were fueling the surge in Chinese. Parents, students and educators recognize China’s emergence as an important country and believe that fluency in its language can open opportunities.

“Chinese is really taking root,” she said. Starting this fall, Jackson High will begin phasing out its German program, she said.

“My fellow Americans: We are not who we think we are.”

So said Thomas Freedom in Hot, Flat and Crowded.

 “Our political system seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or big opportunities. We have been consuming too much, saving too little, studying too laxly, and investing not nearly enough. And our political institutions are also the institutions we have to overcome.”

 I met a retired French business guy in Shanghai who was putting a thirty year endnote on his East Asia travels from the 1960s. He describes how, on his return to France, he and his spouse were greeted by their town’s mayor and encouraged to have children, buy a house and join the community. His employer was equally committed. I have heard other variations of this story from plenty of American baby boomers, too.

 

This is not to say that this is the way we should live. But it’s a nice option for those not skilled in “Brand Me” self-promotion and life-long skill development. It’s that in our rush to be free of 1950s conformity, in our quest to realize our potential, to put individualism ahead of all else, the world has changed. It’s time we look up and outward.

Traveler: Become Childlike

Some musings today on the benefits of travel in foreign lands.  The only comparison to the experience is seeing the world through the eyes of a child, rediscovering the things that we forget to see as adults.

 

The mundane becomes magical. Take ordering food, catching a bus, crossing the street, using the toilet, exploring a food market, noting the music at the restaurant, inhaling new smells, washing cloths in a hostel sink, bargaining with a taxi driver. Like a child, you piece together the world to figure out how it works. Your whole existence becomes a series of guesses, impressions, and little lessons.

 

Its not always “fun.”  You’re vulnerable. When you’re tired and defenses down, you come face to face with your internal resources, or lack there of.

 

You may be excited, bored, cranky, confused, desperate and dazzled all within one day. Just like a baby.

 

The best part. None of this requires much money. It’s much more about taking the plunge and showing up.

"Art Mirrors Life in China: Life and Death, Love and Hate, Sex and Violence"

The Chinese are reticent and reserved. The advent guard art districts of Beijing and Shanghai are populated by Chinese intellectuals and artists, and the Propaganda Department doesn’t much care what they paint. So it’s turned out to be an illuminating window into the Chinese soul. More in Shanghai.

Youthful artists push boundaries more than you’d think Maybe because they can’t elsewhere. This is an artist in Xi’an being interviewed by a western journalist: “There is nothing anymore in China that defines orthodoxy, in morality or anything else, so people just do what they want. Because life here in China is brutal. So art is just a mirror of life. Life and death, love and hate, sex and violence. People in other countries don’t have the pressure to survive that Chinese people have.”

China Modern Art – 698 Beijing & Moganshan Shanghai

The Chinese soul is contending with radical development and change, rising alienation, hope and fear, repressed feelings, sexual and creative energy. Moganshan is an old factory neighborhood full of galleries and studios, similar to 798 in Beijing.

 urban capitalism, isolation, illusions of Mao's future

  

dejection, desperation, exhaustion

sexual repressions, oppressed emotions, fermenting desire if not expressed might destroy the Chinese soul but Beijing will do anything to repress the will of the people

Mao's Cultural Revolution all but destroyed religion and Christianity. In its wake is a deep emptiness, perhaps why Chinese culture can feel so cold.

 

Madison Avenue has arrived in China and with it an ambivalence as it rejects its past and embraces a Western capitalistic future

Who are we, as the new Chinese? Can the old become part of the new?  The emotional toll of a "century of humiliation" at the hands of the "Ocean People"

Vietnam’s Nouveau Riche

You can’t miss it in the big city centers of Hanoi and Saigon.  Like in India, like in China, not only is the middle class growing, but so are huge fortunes being made by Vietnamese entrepreneurs As in China, the big money is in real estate and land development. What was most striking was how opulent is some of this wealth, along side peasants on motorbikes or run-down shacks only miles away from million dollar housing developments.

 

A Vietnamese business man I befriended drove me around some high class suburbs outside of Hanoi, where American style McMansions go for a million dollars.

The Tireless Vietnamese

One thing is clear, as a tourist or business person: the Vietnamese are industrious, independent, and resourceful. Vietnam has been occupied by the French, the Americans and the Chinese.

The first two occupations were short; the memory of the Chinese is more potent, and the Vietnamese have no love toward their neighbor in the north. “We are clear-eyed. China has occupied Vietnam for a thousand years. It has invaded us thirteen times,” said a business man.

But China is also its biggest exporter so it must be practical and accept their presence and rising power. Hanoi squashes on dissent and censorship is widespread.

Asian Smoke Stacks

Tobacco companies make a, well, killing in Asia, where smoking is ubiquitous by men. All the efforts to regulate smoking in the West have done little to dampen these firms profits, who have been exploiting the Asian market for at least the last twenty years.

Cigarettes are cheap, too. Other than gruesome pictures of tarred lungs on the package, and a local language warning, there is no incentive to quiet.

Women for the most part don’t smoke, and certainly not in public. Young European women, seduced perhaps by feeling immortality, is another story.

Morning Alms in Luang Pravang

Every morning at 6 a.m. the monks of Luang Pravang walk down the street, in quiet formation, to Laos people waiting for their arrival. The monks carry baskets. They receive Khnom, an offering: a combination of sticky rice, crackers and food stuff, and small bills that carry them through the day.

“The simpler the life, the happier the life,” is oft used to describe the Laos worldview and perhaps more so the life of the monk.

If you find a quiet street around the corner, you can see the real thing; otherwise the main procession is full of somewhat insensitive tourist-photographers. You’d think the monks are movie stars. The locals find it annoying and the monks chagrined. Later, some young monks joked with me, wanting to know why tourists take so many pictures of them and what they do with them, and “what they are looking for if they already have everything.”

I had no answer.  

Luang Pravang, Laos

Luang Prabang is considered the crown jewel city of Southeast Asia. I can see why. It’s on a hill, surrounded by two rivers and mountains, with small streets and French architecture. Monks walk about. You can walk around the town. As a UNESCO world heritage site, no busses and trucks are allowed. What’s there not to like! PHOTOS.

The lazy days are spent walking about, meeting locals, talking to monks and fellow travelers, and generally getting into respectable trouble.

One memorable night I watch the sunset from a hilltop temple and then join Buddhist monks chanting in a dark, candle lit cove, far away from the “farang,” an endearing Laos and Thai term meaning foreigner.

Another I stumble on (i.e., crash) an outdoor hospital staff party and dance with twenty Laos on a basketball court, to a live band, to traditional music, the most lovely hand gestures, paired in couples, moving in a slow circle.

Another I meander the streets in pitch black, as power up here cannot always be counted on.

The Ethnic Peoples of Laos

There are three broad populations in Laos, who emigrated from modern day Myanmar, China, Thailand and Vietnam over the last few centuries.

Lao Loum – lowland valleys and rivers (South)

Lao Theung – mountain slopes and upland valleys (Center)

Lao Soung – mountain summits (North)

Surrounded my mountains on three sides, Laos is so remote that it was not accessible by road until the late 1990s. Village life lives on as if another century. Getting around the country is slow going, and locals cannot afford to take a plane.

Most Laos in remote tribes, far from the few urban towns, so the only way to get a real feel for its people is to stay with a local family in a village. Luckily, there is a robust eco-ethnic tourist infrastructure to do just that, with resources going back to locals. There is an impressive effort to preserve the environment, promote literacy and educate tourists about Laos.

Many Laos will sleep ten people in a bamboo hut with no water or electricity, grow their own food, rarely eat meat, drink water and lao lao (rice alcohol), bath and do laundry in the river. The minimum wage is one dollar a day, less than the cost of a BeerLao. Average annual income is $1,000.

The only things made in Laos are basic farm crops, handicrafts, textiles, wood products, cement, electricity, cigarettes, beer and soft drinks. Everything else is imported, which explains why things are more expensive than neighboring Thailand and Vietnam. This comes as a surprise to most visitors, including me.

Where are the Elders?

I was wondering why I don’t see any people older than fifty. On the back of a restaurant menu tonight is my answer:

“Please keep your perspective. You are in one of the most remote and poorest countries in the world. When you argue over a few thousand kip, you’re arguing about a few cents with people who are so poor that when they or their loved ones get sick they die. Look around – how many old people do you see? You’re being “ripped off” for pennies by people who have nothing but the smile on their face.”

“The Simpler the Life, the Happier the Life.” Pakbeng with young Laos Family.

Have a late dinner at a Laos restaurant along the Mekong river. The boat arrived at 6 p.m. and will depart tomorrow at 9 in the morning. Other than some accommodations and restaurants for the daily boat, there is not much here.

The couple operating the restaurant are in their twenties and have a young son. Siblings, cousins, it’s a family effort, as is life here.  The people are warm, easy going and inviting. After the patrons leave, we hang out over Laos beer late into the night. We must have cheered to the new year at least a hundred times. The young wife lovingly caretakes their son without any fancy gadgets. The husband learned culinary arts in Chiang Mai, Thailand and opened his own restaurant a few years ago. At twenty-seven, he’s the “big boss.”

Later in the week, I have numerous discussions with fellow travelers who are equally moved by the strong family and social bonds. The Laos people are poor; their life is simple and humble. Yet they have a “social capital,” an appreciate-life-now philosophy missing in the West. They don’t have much. But they have each other.

In fact, I also come to learn that the concept of possession is foreign to the Lao people. The word for “mine” and ‘yours” is the same and there isn’t a word for an individual person. Laos are “communalist,” if that’s a word.

Today Thailand Deports Vietnam War Era Hmong Refugees

As  I write tribal and ethnic conflict lives on –  not far from the highland river crossing. Thailand is deporting to Laos 4,000 ethnic Hmong asylum-seekers who are at risk from persecution by the government. They were soldiers or family members of soldiers -- the "forgotten allies" -- who decades ago fought in a secret army set up by the United States to combat the communist insurgents who eventually took over the country in 1975.

Secretary of State Clinton and her peers are speaking out, to no avail. Thailand and Laos, however small, are sovereign, after all.

Chiang Mai New Year, Full Moon

OK, I am a travel snob. Hate all the Westerns bringing their fraternity revelry to Thailand. Head west of the old city, to the university district, where I stumble on the place where Thais, and only Thais, hang out.

Stumble on a New Year concert, too. Hip Thai scene.

Hundreds of Thai “candle kites” ascend the night sky in a pearl of shimmering light. I marvel knowing it's been five months since leaving Vermont, USA.

Meaningful Male Monkhood

In Thailand and  Laos, I have had the opportunity to befriend young monks, many of whom you see going about their business to/from school, friends, temples. (Women are to keep their distance and never touch them.)

Udone’s story inspires. He is Laos and came to Chiang Mai, Thailand for college, since educational opportunities across the border are not good. Orphaned at fifteen, he showed up in Chiang Mae and found his way to one of the many Wats (Buddhist temples), where he found free room & board in exchange for temple and community service. This is a common scenario and explains why most of the orange-garbed monks walking about are school aged. They take Buddhist vows for a few years, learn philosophy and right livelihood, practice discipline and go to school during the day. In return they participate in daily temple life and serve the local community. Most leave the priesthood by their mid-twenties and have a family. Thus their time builds character, discipline, and supports a positive transition to adulthood. The community “subsidizes” and benefits from their service.

Udone and other young monks I chatted with struck me as remarkably mature by Western standards. Naïve they are not. They understand the hardship and temptation outside the Wat. They have seen friends turn to drugs and premature sexual relations and other distractions to “becoming a man.” All have stories of struggle and hardship. Udone hopes to go back to Laos and help his people, but he is concerned about his economic prospects.

It’s an excellent example of a society in relative harmony about life transitions, and helping young men – the majority of whom cause the most trouble to every society – become positive impact citizens.  I ponder the troubled wayward young men in America, who have no place to turn, and too often end up in prison or drug rehab. Girls and young women are not addressed in this equation, Udone empathically acknowledges, suggesting that as the generations mature maybe one day this will change.

The Changing Face of Thai People

Ing Doi House

There are lots of expats in Pai, I discover. I was speaking to a British bungalow owner who is married to a Thai woman; they have two kids. He’s been in Thailand for over a decade. They all observe that the Thai middle class is just beginning to take off. It’s a big deal for many to come from Bangkok for the weekend. New to being a tourist, they innocently take photos of everything, no matter how trivial.  One shopkeeper joked that they can be so gullible that they would buy Pai’s “morning mist” if sealed in a can.

Others lament that the younger generation doesn’t want to follow in the agrarian traditions of their ancestors. (Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of rice.) Rice fields are being converted into property. Machines are tilling the fields more.

Modernity is on its way. Civilized and welcoming, rich in heritage, here too is a society eager to embrace a Western future, to discard tradition for modernity, to be cool. And with it all the problems that plague industrial societies.

Can you blame them?

The Beloved King of the Thai People

A lovely thing is how Thais venerate their honorary head of state, King Adulyadej, the longest reigning monarch in the world. Pictures and monuments to him are ubiquitous. I arrived just a few days after his birthday, and for a week the city goes crazy celebrating him. Many of the decorations were still scattered throughout the city.

Twice a day, in the non-touristy areas, you’ll hear a thirty second anthem on the radio and television. Even at a busy market or restaurant, Thais will stop what they are doing, stand and pay tribute to a figure they adore. Similarly, movie theaters open with the anthem, as I discovered seeing Avatar in Bangkok.

Adulyadej is hugely admired by his people. Tourists are instructed that under no circumstances should you do anything to offend this relationship. Aging and in ill health, many Thais wonder what will happen to Thailand after he passes, as they don’t much like his son yet they adore the daughter. Girl revolution, anyone?

American Club, Hong Kong. Bridge between East and West

Today I met with a business executive who manages the Pacific-Asia region for a publicly traded US company. We’re sitting at a table high above Hong Kong, talking about China then and now, as I watch the boats cross the harbor and lookout toward the north horizon, mainland China, the place I have been trying to understand for two months.  

 

Hong Kong has lost considerable power in the global economic calamity. Like Singapore, so much of its business is tied to finance and banking. Ironically, it’s the mainland Chinese and their new money that is keeping the economy in the black. Small apartments across the harbor go for millions of US dollars.

 

The British handover ten years ago is slowly leading to assimilation. Hong Kongers are beginning to first identify themselves as Chinese, before they say they are from Hong Kong. Beijing’s perspective is long. It and its people are patient. “Human rights, judicial, law, transparency – it will come in time.” The Chinese are proud of their country. Their government isn’t perfect but it has changed people’s lives for the better. The future looks more bright than anyone can remember.

 

Hong Kong has its advantages. Its UK-based legal and business system make it an obvious base to launch into the mainland. Hong Kong is the bridge between China and the world.

 

At the end of our lunch, I head to the Hong Kong airport, where my entry into China first began. I land in Bangkok tonight, where’s I’ll chill out in the mountains near Burma during the holiday, and write and reflect on the last four months, before heading into Indochina and Vietnam.

Guangdong Province, Workshop of the World

Another whirlwind twenty-four hours. Took an overnight bus, complete with mini sleeping births and blankets (left), back to Guangzhou; and then headed by bus to Hong Kong.

 

The ride takes from Guangzhou takes me through Guangdong Province, just north of Hong Kong, famous for manufacturing and assembly, including Apple products. Shenzhen, its capital, was the first city to become a Special Economic Zone under Deng Xiapoing in 1980.

 

As the bus makes its way south, the highway intersects smokestacks and endless plants. It’s smoggy and gritty, factory after factory. Unlike America, these are not distribution warehouses. These places make the very things that line the shelves of Walmart. I wonder about all the Chinese factory workers that toil away, come from the countryside for a better life. Shabam, Time just published a neat little portrait of the region.

 

If Tolkien’s Mordor was a commentary on mass industrialization, Guangdong Province might be it. China says that much of its pollution is a result of Western demand, that America is outsourcing its mess here and isn’t willing to take responsibility for its voracious appetitive for consumption. They have a point.

 

From Hong Kong, the Southern China Post headline reads “Climate Caps Don’t Work for China.” Beijing is afraid that it will slow its annual growth rates by 2 to 3 percent, which would cause massive unemployment and, the fear goes, civic unrest. This is what I was hearing in Beijing two months ago. It underscores the difficulty of climate change policy: short vs. long-term benefit and cost. When push comes to shove, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. We avoid pain today even if it means greater suffering tomorrow. Must be ancient animal wiring. Whether an individual, a couple, a family, a town or country, we act out of self-interest. The math is crude – but it works.

 

I am reading Michael Crittenden State of Fear, about an eco-terrorist conspiracy playing to the chorus of global warming deniers.

 

Meanwhile, BBC World News is broadcasting the kick-off of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Heads of state, press conferences, pledges, green energy company commercials – can agreement among so many be reached, and will the people of the emerging world listen when so many are struggling to survive, feed and shelter their family?

 

I hereby conclude that Hong Kongers are good looking and fashion conscious.

Propaganda posters in the basement of an old apartment building

Discovered this most fascinating small museum run by an old man, in a non-descript basement, in an old apartment building, in Shanghai. Some how this seems appropriate.

The posters are between 1949 and 1976, and illustrate how inward looking and closed China was during most the twenty century. The fervor of the Cold War, the defensive position against Western imperialist, the marketing campaigns behind Mao’s Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

Mandarin translations along the photo where I could.

 

A Changeless Chinese Culture

I am beginning to comprehend. Barely, but I will take what I can get.

 “Confucianism looks backward, to a Golden Age in the past and tries to mimic and recreate that time. Whereas Christianity looks to a future day of judgment, and wants to overcome evil, Confucianism tends to accept the world as it is.”

This helps explain why Chinese technological discoveries didn’t grow into a scientific revolution. Science had not social prestige, no precedent. There were no for entrepreneurs to prosper. It’s why classical architecture is so uniform and unchanging over the ages. If you already no the ideal, why change it?

Herein lies a great challenge: in a world that prizes innovation and change, can the Chinese people reform this age old ethos of tradition and conformity?

Qufu, Home of Confucius

 Downtown Qufu is a quaint town – unlike other attractions, its visitors are Chinese. Walk around town and enjoy the street food of skewers of meat and vegetable grilled, egg pancakes, boiled scorpions. I’m a novelty here, garnering glances and friendly ingratiation. No one speaks English, anywhere. I revel in the discovery. Ten weeks experience and have learned something, even can speak a few phrases in Mandarin. I’m not a baby like arriving in Beijing. More like a five year old.

Confucius born and died in Qufu (circa 478 BC). For the last two thousand years, Emperors  have venerated his home, adding on a 466-room, 9 courtyard, 1-km long Confucius Temple on a north-south access. Its architectural importance rivals the Forbidden City in Beijing. But that was later. Confucius was a humble man, with few possessions.

The Kong family from which he is patriarch enjoyed the good life until the twenty century when, in the 1940s, Kong Demaoi, a family leader of Confucianism, fled to Taiwan during the Japanese invasion. The Qufu phone book is full of Kong’s, as allegedly so many living here are descendents. For all of Confucius’ prowess, the seminal Chinese thinker – akin to Socrates and Plato in the West, Lincoln and Jefferson in America – was never able to put his political philosophy to practical use as a government official. Hence, he’s said to the only  Chinese leader who never let the people down.

He was a poet, an unacknowledged legislator of the world, as Percy Shelley opined. Kant called him “the Chinese Socrates” Western greats like Voltaire and Rousseau lionized him, disgusted as they were with religious dogma. “No superstitions, no absurd legends, none of those dogmas which insult reason and nature.”

The evening is spent walking around food stalls – the town’s specialty, boiled scorpion. Dinner can be had for about 10 RNB, or about a $1.50. 

It’s a brisk start to the day. I have only till 3 p.m. before heading onward to Shanghai. The temple complex that successive emperors built to venerate Mr. Confucius is quiet and empty.

After a succession of gates and courtyards lies a three-story wooden building built in 1018, a triple-layered room with curving eaves and four layers of crossbeams, called Kue Wen Pavilion. Beyong lie the thirteen stele pavilions, containing 53 tablets presented by emperors to commemorate their visits. Further along is Apricot Altar, where Confucius is said to have taught. This is far more humble than where Socrates, Plato and Aristotle debated.

It’s difficult to comprehend than within these walls developed a guiding philosophy that has guided a 2,000 year empire. There is also an auspicious Cypress tree, which Confucius supposedly planted. Perhaps the Chinese version of Buddha’s bodhi tree. Some even suggest that Confucius came from India and is Buddha.

Beyond is the grandest building, The Hall of Great Achievements. This is where Confucius was worshipped through the ages. Each emperor, not to be outdone, added something new, in this case 28 stone pillars carved with bas-relief dragons, dating around 1500. The complex is a relic, devoid of spirit in contrast to India. The inside is cold, damp and cold. The architecture is difficult to appreciate as it’s subtle and changes little over the ages, a hallmark to simplicity, consistency and tradition.

The Hall of Poetry and Rites is where Confucius was supposed to have taught his son, Kong Li, to learn poetry from the Book of Odes, to learn the art of expression, and ritual from the Book of Rites, to build character. The centuries-old stone relief’s are the only visual depiction of Confucius that gives me some sense of what he means by scholarship, discipline and honor.

Only on the way out do I discover the entrance to Confucius’ home: squished between the Temple complex and his surviving family’s mansion. It’s the size of shack.  The irony is not lost. Said the Mr. Confucius: “With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my crooked arm for a pillow - is not joy to be found therein? Riches and honors acquired through unrighteousness are to me as the floating clouds.”

A few bus rides later, I am back at the Yanzhou train station to catch the D31 Express to Shanghai. From ancient past to the glimmering Chinese city of the future.  As the scenery passes by, I realize that you can’t understand China if you don’t understand Confucianism.

What’s Confucianism?

Confucianism has guides emperors and the Chinese people for two thousand years.   Its philosophy is based on a collection of writings compiled by his disciples. Soon after his death, it became the most influential political philosophy among successive Chinese Empires, and remained that way with incredible consistency.

Ever wonder where the Chinese tradition of obedience comes from? Why relationships matter more than law? Why stepping out of line is an insult? Or losing face, humiliation, is the worst possible insult? Look no further. All of which helps explain President Obama’s deference during his recent trip to China – it’s was meant as respect.

Confucius has had the same impact as the Protestant work ethic has had in America. The lines between politics and commerce and culture are blurry. Confucianism in China is no difficult.

As a moral code, consider the five virtues –  benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness – and you begin to understand what’s important to the Chinese. It lionized the citizen who “combines the qualities of saint, scholar, and gentleman.” In other words, be the man of a woman’s dreams, or a CEO or President.

I learn that women were given equal rights in the early part of the twenty century, the same time as in America. Before that, like everywhere else, women were treated as second class citizens. Confucius venerated social harmony above all else.  Heavy on authority and peer pressure, individualism like me crashing the Great Wall not so much. You follow the rules, honor; violate them, shame. It’s like a  “state religion” without the religion.

The leader, the “wisest sage,” the philosopher king, is to be emulated. “Just as the ruler genuinely desires the good, the people will be good. The virtue of the ruler may be compared to the wind and that of the common people to the grass. The grass under the force of the wind cannot but bend”. I bet this can be traced back to the campfire, the king, the shamanic seer, the bridge between earth and sky. Some one shows me the symbol for king. It depicts the three levels of the universe, united by the king in the middle.

王

Speaking of religion, it’s Taoism not Confucianism that addressed theological questions. Taoism is the product of China. But I have yet to meet a Taoist. Buddhism also made inroads in China. But I have yet to meet a Han Buddhist.

So we are left with Confucianism, the moral and ethical code par excellence, a Ten Commandments without the Moses, Yahweh, Son of God and Mohammad, without the ritual, worship, festivals, the fire and brimstone. It has the rules down, and the efficiently, and the discipline to gets things done, but the space between heaven and earth is absent to me. Maybe this helps explain why I am left cold.

A few key concepts radiate. One is that in order to govern others one must first govern oneself. Another is the practice of meritocracy, which preceded its practice in the west. The Imperial Examination was used for millennium to become a venerated government officer. The best minds, no matter their background, could rise through the ranks and benefit the nation.  This is one reason why India’s antiquated caste system is so incompatible with an open society in which citizens must realize their potential in order to benefit the nation. Unlike in America, some of the brightest minds work in government.

Another big one is scholasticism. Confucius implored his son to study poetry and world history, I am pleased to learn. Whether at Beijing University, or UC Berkeley, or my MBA program, the Chinese study assiduously. How many I see studying English on the train or at the café.

Tibet Video & Audio

Tibet monks in a debate-style learning session: 

Download 10_2009_tibet monks

The Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet

It stirs the imagination. The tallest structure in Lhasa, a beacon between heaven and earth, surrounded by valleys, high above the world. Beginning at dawn, I meander around as the faithful walk around the palace, clockwise, murmuring prayers, counting beads, spinning wheels. Everything sacred moves in a circle, so it seems.

It’s visceral, a transformative journey, a beginning and ending in one. The Japanese trek around their sacred mountains, just as the Nepalese and Tibetans do, too. It’s a beautiful site.

Lhasa, Tibet

Lhasa is different. The air is clean and the sky blue. The Jokjang Temple in the center town is the most holy. Pilgrims make there rounds clockwise, whispering prayers, and others prostrate on mats, up and down. Candles burn. It is Tibet far more than it is China.

However the tension between the two is beneath the surface. It was last March, Lhasa erupted in violence as they commemorated the 1959 uprising. Getting here required a special permit and visitors are not allowed to travel without a guide. The border closes without notice.

 

Chinese military police stand guard at intersections, guns drawn. They don’t look friendly and we’re told to never take pictures of them.

One day, in front of the Potala Palace, where the Chinese have erected a mini Tiananmen square with Chinese flags, an obvious affront to the locals, military police walk rank and file. The setting sun stirs the imagination. In the park I encounter two Tibetans. We get talking, sort of. They ask to see my pictures. When he sees the Chinese flag, he curses and points his finger in disgust.

 

I greet a restaurant worker in the Nepalese hello, tashedalay. She yacks to her coworkers. Of course, she’s Han. I say hello in Mandarin and she smiles.

Meanwhile, traditional Tibet life goes on.